


A Lesser Satellite

by linaerys



Series: Hell is Empty [1]
Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 23:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3547895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linaerys/pseuds/linaerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt from ajaxbell:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Balem’s paramour (who? what?) picking his clothes for him, pre Seraphi’s death. How did he relate to people then? Was he just a fussy, spoiled prince, hiding a different depth of hurt, a different kind?</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	A Lesser Satellite

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the wonderful prompt! In order to “research” this, I had to look at a bunch of pictures of Eddie Redmayne to figure out what colors he looked best in. What torture.

The chamber presence picked out three outfits for Ariel’s perusal, but she gestured them all away. Too much charcoal gray. Too close to black, too mourning, for this night. 

Introduced to mother. Few had come so far, and if they married, their combined family wealth would dwarf the others in this part of the galaxy. 

Her outfit was easy, and already donned, a long sheath of deep gold, with a sheer and shining over-dress. The fabric’s stiffness held it away from her body in a way that made her look just slightly artificial, more doll than woman. She had picked it long ago, for this moment. It was perfectly correct, the gold a compliment to Seraphi Abrasax, and the sigils of her empire. It looked well with Ariel’s fair skin, and pale hair. Silver and gold. The artificiality of her dress a way of yielding to Seraphi: you are the woman, the mother. I am the toy.

It was his clothes through which she would send a subtler message. He trusted her in this, and a thousand other things. He preferred muted colors, but he would not object to this, a jacket close to navy, but brighter, with an ocean’s richness, buttoned high, but still showed a cream-colored shirt. A subtle vibrancy that would make him look younger, more alive. Colors he would not choose for himself.

She offered a few other choices, ones she knew he would not take. A long gray mandarin coat that he had worn when fighting with Seraphi. A shirt worn the day he discovered the plague on Cepheus 6.

She heard the shower stop, the murmurs of the presence as he was dried and lotioned. He stepped over the threshold, and stopped, cocking his head to one side to listen to a message from his implant.

He walked carefully into the room. She loved watching him. Somehow the care he took with his movements, something common to Entitled who had seen thousands of years, did not look like age on him, only a part of the control that was at the center of his personality.

“She’s not coming,” he said, quiet and toneless.

“Balem.” She stepped closer to him, wrapped her arms around him, crushing stiff gold fabric between them. He stayed still and taut.

“Your dress is scratching me.” A definite coolness.

She backed away. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t like it.” He pressed his lips together. 

Ariel spread her hands. “She should treat you better.”

He laughed slightly. “It’s you she doesn’t want to meet.” Ariel forced herself not to show her anger. The prize was worth some humiliation along the way. Anyway, she loved him—or loved things about him. His eyes followed hers, to the outfits on the bed. “You think she’s afraid to meet you?” he asked. “Afraid you’ll replace her. No, probably she doesn’t want a wasted evening.”

Ariel looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Wasted with me? I’m not the one she was coming to see.”

Spots of angry color lit his cheeks. “She said she’d come another time.” He looked more vulnerable now. Ariel had thought this was ending, but now she saw how she could keep him. She pulled the cloud of gold fabric from her shoulders, not caring that it ripped. She would not wear it again. 

She took a robe down from a hook, and wrapped it around his shoulders. He shivered when it touched him. She kissed his forehead, smoothed back hair that was already perfectly arranged. 

“She will, I’m sure,” she said. But Ariel doubted she would still be here to meet her.


End file.
